S&P under fire for Africa map errors in sovereign report

S&P Global Ratings has drawn criticism for errors in its depiction of Africa’s map in a recent report on 27 of the continent’s 54 sovereign states, raising questions about its quality control processes.

The errors, contained in a report published on February 19, included Burundi being incorrectly labelled as Uganda — despite the agency having rated Uganda’s sovereign debt for the past 18 years.

And in S&P’s world, South Sudan and Sudan are one country — the two states are presented as one country on their map.

Until 2011, the two were one country. That year, after decades of civil war, the southern section seceded, becoming one of the world’s newest nations: South Sudan.

The ratings agency has been rating Africa’s sovereigns for about 30 years and has had boots on the ground in South Africa since 2008.

Sharp criticism

The S&P map also refers to the Republic of Congo by its unofficial name, Congo Brazzaville. The errors drew sharp criticism from Misheck Mutize, lead expert on support to African countries on credit ratings agencies with the African Peer Review Mechanism.

The South Africa-based Mutize took to his LinkedIn account to call out S&P.

“A map is not just a graphic; it reflects underlying analytical awareness. Uganda has been rated by S&P since December 2008. Yet important investors’ public material misidentifies its geographic location,” Mutize wrote.

“It’s assumed that credit rating reports undergo multiple layers of quality assurance and editorial checks. If basic geographic facts can pass through these filters, what about the analytical assumptions embedded in sovereign risk models?

“If you are in Uganda and your market watcher cannot accurately locate you on the map, would that not raise legitimate concern? One cannot help but wonder, had similar inaccuracies involved more powerful nations, would they not have been swiftly corrected, perhaps even accompanied by a formal apology?”

A map is not just a graphic; it reflects underlying analytical awareness.

—  Misheck Mutize

S&P on Tuesday amended the map to correct the Uganda and Burundi confusion, seemingly happy it didn’t err on other matters.

“On March 3 2026 we republished this article to accurately represent Uganda in the map featured. We also added a footnote to reflect the 54 UN-recognised African states (excluding Western Sahara),” the entity said in an editor’s note.

Business Day understands that S&P relied on generic representation that omits persistent disputed borders between South Sudan and Sudan and that it uses the name Congo Brazzaville to distinguish the country from the Democratic Republic of Congo, and this was done in agreement with the Republic of the Congo.

Business Day could not verify this with the Republic of the Congo by the time of going to print.

Ratings agencies have come under scrutiny for the high risk premium they attach to African sovereigns, which, in some quarters, is deemed excessive and not reflecting reality.

South Africa’s G20 presidency put the high cost of capital as one of its focus areas, amid perceptions that ratings agencies and international investors impose an unjustified “Africa risk premium” that makes it costly for African countries to borrow on the market.

A report commissioned by the late Pope Francis and published in June 2025 called for the reform of private credit ratings agencies, saying they exert “outsized influence on sovereign debt dynamics”.

The report found that 54 developing countries spent 10% or more of their tax revenues on interest costs.

Since 2014 the average interest burden for developing countries has almost doubled, with debt distress most severe in Africa, the only region where public debt has been growing faster than GDP, the report found.